HGA to Design $58 Million Student Success Center at East Los Angeles College

Last Updated: January 20, 2011

Los Angeles, CA, USA

HGA to Design $58 Million Student Success Center at East Los Angeles College

HGA Architects and Engineers has been awarded the contract to design a new, $58 million Student Success Center at East Los Angeles College, located in the L.A. suburb of Monterey Park. The project was won through a design-build competition and contains 130,000 SF. The complex is striving to achieve Net Zero Energy and is on target for LEED Gold certification. Slated for completion in summer 2014, the design will consolidate nine school departments into a flexible learning environment, encouraging collaborative student-faculty interaction while incorporating sustainable strategies.

The five-story structure will bring together the nine school departments that were previously dispersed throughout the campus. Included will be classrooms, offices, common areas and labs such as language, reading and writing.

"Today, good design must be inherently sustainable; the East L.A. College Student Success Center is an excellent example of that belief," said James Matson, HGA's principal-in-charge. "By utilizing the latest technology along with wind studies and day-lighting analysis, HGA's team has created an ideal sustainable learning environment to help bring together the school's diverse student body. Thus, our design has not only created an interactive learning environment, we are seeking Net Zero Energy, which underscores one of our firm's core beliefs of creating sustainable design."

The center's restorative design includes natural ventilation allowing for nearly 70 percent of all classrooms and offices to be within 25 feet of operable windows. High-efficiency mechanical systems and lighting are included, along with solar shading.

To create the Success Center, HGA utilized the latest 3-D BIM (building information modeling) technology and conducted wind and daylight studies. Bio-mimicry, a design approach that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature's patterns and strategies, also was incorporated in the project.

Through the design-build process, HGA also incorporated Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), a growing trend in higher education development. The IPD process enables HGA to deliver projects better, faster and at a lesser cost by maximizing efficiency through all phases of design and construction.

The structure faces a new quad on its north side. It will be the largest open green space quad at East L.A. College. Bioswales and permeable paving are features of the quad, which includes some existing landscaping and roadways. This quad will become the heart of the campus.

An open-air, central court connects the Success Center's two distinct wings: one for faculty offices and another for classrooms. The court also serves as the building's main entrance and vertical circulation spine, with a full-wall, painted graphic mural and brick pavers extending outward toward the campus quad. There are two other atriums, one that is a shaded exterior atrium for the classroom wing and one that is interior skylit space at the office wing, offering informal gathering spaces while further reinforcing natural ventilation, day-lighting and interior circulation.

About HGAHGA is an integrated architecture, engineering and planning firm that helps prepare its clients for the future. With offices in Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, California; and Washington, DC, the nationally recognized firm has developed expertise in the healthcare, corporate, arts, community, higher education, and science/technology industries since 1953. HGA's culture for interdisciplinary collaboration, knowledge sharing and design investiga tion enables its clients to achieve success with responsive, innovative and sustainable design.